Walter:

Well, it all depends... (Bet that was a whole lot of help...)
Personally, nearly all of my antennas are for transmission as well as
receiving, and I can tell you that what most people call a "Sky Wire Loop"
has been pretty effective for me. I am located at an elevation of a
whopping 180 feet above sea level, approximately 2 miles from the ocean.
My location is about 119.5 degrees north latitude and 155 degrees west
longitude on the Big Island of Hawaii, the southernmost island in the
island chain. From here, just about everything you'd normally hear is
considered DX.

I've had a 600 to 700 loop up, supported by local and brittle trees
(albesia) that started with an average installed height of about 30 feet,
and eventually got down below 20 feet average height before it got pulled
down. At the current time, I've got poles in place to install about a
1000 foot loop nearly 40 feet high, but am waiting for hurricane jimene to
pass the big island before I put up the big loop. We expect the hurricane
to pass us Monday morning without landfall (if all goes well), and I'll
get the wire loop back up once it passes....

I got decent results with the 600+ foot loop on all bands except 160m, and
it may have not been all that effective down there anyway, given my
location. From here, nearly any contact (except those few within 200
miles) is DX. No short skip from here, unless it is in excess of 2300
miles....

I've been favorably impressed with the performance of the 600+ plus loop
both in receive and transmit, so much so that I was willing to spend
nearly $500 to put up the 1000 foot loop, not including the cost of the
boom truck to raise the poles to support the new loop. If you're so
lucky as to have some tall trees, so much the better, as the actual wire
costs are pretty inexpensive. I use 12 gauge stranded, insulated wire and
have had no problems with wire loops (in several locations) for nearly ten
years using typical THHN type stranded wire. You may get away with a
smaller gauge wire if you aren't using trees for supports, (but I will
still be using 12 Ga. for my pole supported loop... Habits die hard
sometimes in the Ham Radio world.) You could even use bare wire, but I
prefer insulated wire because if I get in contact with a tree or other
support, I don't have to worry much...

Well, this got a bunch longer than I intended, but the bottom line is: If
you are wondering about how effective a decent sized loop can be, put one
up and find out. Typically, you won't be disappointed. Horizontally
oriented loops don't seem to get much of the local interference like
vertical whips do, and they are essentially omnidirectional, with some
gain depending upon the number of wavelengths for your band of interest.
There are definitely times that the loop outperforms even a decent beam,
and others where the beam really shines and loop takes second place, but
if you don't have a good tower with a rotatable tower for the bands you
are interested in, a large, horizontal loop can't be a bad thing....

Good luck and Good Listening!

Thanks
--Rick AH7H

Walter wrote:

Should I run a Sky-wire loop?

I currently have a dipole hung by two trees about 30 feet off the
ground.

I would replace the dipole and run the Skywire loop off the same
trees, along with two more trees at the same height as the current
dipole.

This antenna would only be used for receiving, and never for
transmitting, the same for the dipole.

My question is, does anybody think it will make enough of a difference
over the dipole to warrant running it?

I would also like to know what your views are on "grounding" either
my current dipole, or the Sky-wire.

Currently, I have the coax center wire soldered onto one end of the
dipole, and the braid soldered onto the other end. I was told that I
should also ground the braid before it comes into the house and into
the radio.

I do have a ground wire attached to GND screw on the back of the
radio, going outside to a piece of copper pipe pounded into the
ground. Is this enough, or do I need to also ground the braid, and if
so, how? Will grounding help my reception, or decrease the noise on
the line?

Thanks.

Walter:

Well, it all depends... (Bet that was a whole lot of help...)
Personally, nearly all of my antennas are for transmission as well as
receiving, and I can tell you that what most people call a "Sky Wire Loop"
has been pretty effective for me. I am located at an elevation of a
whopping 180 feet above sea level, approximately 2 miles from the ocean.
My location is about 119.5 degrees north latitude and 155 degrees west
longitude on the Big Island of Hawaii, the southernmost island in the
island chain. From here, just about everything you'd normally hear is
considered DX.

I've had a 600 to 700 loop up, supported by local and brittle trees
(albesia) that started with an average installed height of about 30 feet,
and eventually got down below 20 feet average height before it got pulled
down. At the current time, I've got poles in place to install about a
1000 foot loop nearly 40 feet high, but am waiting for hurricane jimene to
pass the big island before I put up the big loop. We expect the hurricane
to pass us Monday morning without landfall (if all goes well), and I'll
get the wire loop back up once it passes....

I got decent results with the 600+ foot loop on all bands except 160m, and
it may have not been all that effective down there anyway, given my
location. From here, nearly any contact (except those few within 200
miles) is DX. No short skip from here, unless it is in excess of 2300
miles....

I've been favorably impressed with the performance of the 600+ plus loop
both in receive and transmit, so much so that I was willing to spend
nearly $500 to put up the 1000 foot loop, not including the cost of the
boom truck to raise the poles to support the new loop. If you're so
lucky as to have some tall trees, so much the better, as the actual wire
costs are pretty inexpensive. I use 12 gauge stranded, insulated wire and
have had no problems with wire loops (in several locations) for nearly ten
years using typical THHN type stranded wire. You may get away with a
smaller gauge wire if you aren't using trees for supports, (but I will
still be using 12 Ga. for my pole supported loop... Habits die hard
sometimes in the Ham Radio world.) You could even use bare wire, but I
prefer insulated wire because if I get in contact with a tree or other
support, I don't have to worry much...

Well, this got a bunch longer than I intended, but the bottom line is: If
you are wondering about how effective a decent sized loop can be, put one
up and find out. Typically, you won't be disappointed. Horizontally
oriented loops don't seem to get much of the local interference like
vertical whips do, and they are essentially omnidirectional, with some
gain depending upon the number of wavelengths for your band of interest.
There are definitely times that the loop outperforms even a decent beam,
and others where the beam really shines and loop takes second place, but
if you don't have a good tower with a rotatable tower for the bands you
are interested in, a large, horizontal loop can't be a bad thing....

Good luck and Good Listening!

Thanks
--Rick AH7H

Walter wrote:

Should I run a Sky-wire loop?

I currently have a dipole hung by two trees about 30 feet off the
ground.

I would replace the dipole and run the Skywire loop off the same
trees, along with two more trees at the same height as the current
dipole.

This antenna would only be used for receiving, and never for
transmitting, the same for the dipole.

My question is, does anybody think it will make enough of a difference
over the dipole to warrant running it?

I would also like to know what your views are on "grounding" either
my current dipole, or the Sky-wire.

Currently, I have the coax center wire soldered onto one end of the
dipole, and the braid soldered onto the other end. I was told that I
should also ground the braid before it comes into the house and into
the radio.

I do have a ground wire attached to GND screw on the back of the
radio, going outside to a piece of copper pipe pounded into the
ground. Is this enough, or do I need to also ground the braid, and if
so, how? Will grounding help my reception, or decrease the noise on
the line?

Thanks.

Rick,

Thanks for the input, I have been to the big island, twice. Once in
1972, and once in 1978. I would love to go back sometime, but need to
talk my wife into it.

Anyway, it also sounds like you have a lot of real estate. I have a
pretty big back yard. That is almost made for a sky-wire loop.

Here is photo from last year, you can see that I have trees boarding
it all the way around. (the house is behind me when I took the photo)
The dipole is currently hooked to the tall maple in the back on the
left had side of this photo, running back to the house and another
maple tree of equal size in the front yard. There are large trees on
the right hand side of the property just out of view of this photo in
which I could run a few extra supports.

http://www.altonillinois.com/newhouse/backyard6.jpg

when I bought this house last year, I kind of lucked out. I got a
place that is only a half a mile or so from the highest elevation in
the county (keep in mind this is Illinois), and I'm only 50 feet or so
below that (580 feet)

I am leaning towards putting one up. It doesn't sound like it would
take much more work.

How is your feed line grounded?

Thanks.

Rick,

Thanks for the input, I have been to the big island, twice. Once in
1972, and once in 1978. I would love to go back sometime, but need to
talk my wife into it.

Anyway, it also sounds like you have a lot of real estate. I have a
pretty big back yard. That is almost made for a sky-wire loop.

Here is photo from last year, you can see that I have trees boarding
it all the way around. (the house is behind me when I took the photo)
The dipole is currently hooked to the tall maple in the back on the
left had side of this photo, running back to the house and another
maple tree of equal size in the front yard. There are large trees on
the right hand side of the property just out of view of this photo in
which I could run a few extra supports.

http://www.altonillinois.com/newhouse/backyard6.jpg

when I bought this house last year, I kind of lucked out. I got a
place that is only a half a mile or so from the highest elevation in
the county (keep in mind this is Illinois), and I'm only 50 feet or so
below that (580 feet)

I am leaning towards putting one up. It doesn't sound like it would
take much more work.

How is your feed line grounded?

Thanks.

Walter:

I've tried two methods of feeding the loop(s) here. At first, I just
hooked a chunk (technical term for random length I had on hand) of coax to
the loop, with center conductor to one side and shield to the other side
of the loop. This connected to one port of an MFJ 986 Differential T
tuner. The coax wasn't separately, using the ground connection through
the MFJ tuner and on to station ground, which is a grid of wires buried
under a 1600+ square foot concrete slab that is the floor of my
Workshop/studio/ham shack. .A second method I used was connecting 600 ohm
ladder line to the loop and bringing it down to an old Johnson Matchbox
tuner. The tuner case is connected to station ground, but neither leg of
the ladder line is.

Both methods got out, and I did pretty well with the coax approach, but I
prefer the Johnson Matchbox because I feel it is "cleaner" (another
technical term, meaning I just feel better about the balanced tuner than a
coax tuner) than the coax type of connection. Propagation has been enough
different between the times that I had the coax up and when I put up the
ladder line that I can't do a direct A-B comparison, but I think it may
have been a little better with the balanced ladder line feeder....

Now that hurricane jimena has passed us by, I'll get moving in getting the
big loop up, but now my wife wants me to put a flag/windsock on each of
two of the supports, so that may delay me another week or two.... however,
when I do put it up, it will go up with 600 ohm ladder line feeding one of
my Matchboxes.

Putting up a horizontal loop takes a bit of doing if you want it to stay
up. For the first few I've done, I've just got out the old slingshot and
lobbed a fishing weight over a series of trees, pulling a nylon line
behind, which was connected to a 12 gauge wire that would become the
actual antenna. Fairly quick and it works well as a semi-permanent
antenna as well as a field day "quickie". However, eventually, it will
drift downward and get close enough to the ground you may want to
re-string the wire. Not a big deal, especially from the looks of the
kinds of trees you have. Here, the only trees I have are just too brittle
to keep a wire in them for long. They shed limbs on their own at the
slightest excuse. For a more permanent installation, I've purchased
threaded thickwall (galvanized) electrical conduit in 2" and 1 1/2"
(inside diameter) sizes. Two sections of 2" and two sections of 1 1/2"
conduit total about 40 feet, and with guys at the 30 foot level and
pulleys at 31, 35 and nearly 40 feet I can haul up a variety of wires
without much trouble. The costs did mount, as each 40' pole cost nearly
$100, plus "aircraft" wire cable and clamps, and I had to use a boom truck
to pick them up and hold them vertical until they were guyed. I used
cracks in the lava for three of the four posts, and the last one went over
an existing 1 1/2" diameter 6 foot high pipe at one property corner (a 10
foot pipe sunk in concrete). I'd imagine if you were to do something
similar, the conduit would cost less than here, as you don't have to worry
about ocean shipping adding costs to simple (but heavy) materials like
conduit and pipe. Once I get it all up, I'll total it up and put some
pictures on one of my web sites.

thanks
--Rick

Walter wrote:

Rick,

Thanks for the input, I have been to the big island, twice. Once in
1972, and once in 1978. I would love to go back sometime, but need to
talk my wife into it.

Anyway, it also sounds like you have a lot of real estate. I have a
pretty big back yard. That is almost made for a sky-wire loop.

Here is photo from last year, you can see that I have trees boarding
it all the way around. (the house is behind me when I took the photo)
The dipole is currently hooked to the tall maple in the back on the
left had side of this photo, running back to the house and another
maple tree of equal size in the front yard. There are large trees on
the right hand side of the property just out of view of this photo in
which I could run a few extra supports.

http://www.altonillinois.com/newhouse/backyard6.jpg

when I bought this house last year, I kind of lucked out. I got a
place that is only a half a mile or so from the highest elevation in
the county (keep in mind this is Illinois), and I'm only 50 feet or so
below that (580 feet)

I am leaning towards putting one up. It doesn't sound like it would
take much more work.

How is your feed line grounded?

Thanks.

Walter:

I've tried two methods of feeding the loop(s) here. At first, I just
hooked a chunk (technical term for random length I had on hand) of coax to
the loop, with center conductor to one side and shield to the other side
of the loop. This connected to one port of an MFJ 986 Differential T
tuner. The coax wasn't separately, using the ground connection through
the MFJ tuner and on to station ground, which is a grid of wires buried
under a 1600+ square foot concrete slab that is the floor of my
Workshop/studio/ham shack. .A second method I used was connecting 600 ohm
ladder line to the loop and bringing it down to an old Johnson Matchbox
tuner. The tuner case is connected to station ground, but neither leg of
the ladder line is.

Both methods got out, and I did pretty well with the coax approach, but I
prefer the Johnson Matchbox because I feel it is "cleaner" (another
technical term, meaning I just feel better about the balanced tuner than a
coax tuner) than the coax type of connection. Propagation has been enough
different between the times that I had the coax up and when I put up the
ladder line that I can't do a direct A-B comparison, but I think it may
have been a little better with the balanced ladder line feeder....

Now that hurricane jimena has passed us by, I'll get moving in getting the
big loop up, but now my wife wants me to put a flag/windsock on each of
two of the supports, so that may delay me another week or two.... however,
when I do put it up, it will go up with 600 ohm ladder line feeding one of
my Matchboxes.

Putting up a horizontal loop takes a bit of doing if you want it to stay
up. For the first few I've done, I've just got out the old slingshot and
lobbed a fishing weight over a series of trees, pulling a nylon line
behind, which was connected to a 12 gauge wire that would become the
actual antenna. Fairly quick and it works well as a semi-permanent
antenna as well as a field day "quickie". However, eventually, it will
drift downward and get close enough to the ground you may want to
re-string the wire. Not a big deal, especially from the looks of the
kinds of trees you have. Here, the only trees I have are just too brittle
to keep a wire in them for long. They shed limbs on their own at the
slightest excuse. For a more permanent installation, I've purchased
threaded thickwall (galvanized) electrical conduit in 2" and 1 1/2"
(inside diameter) sizes. Two sections of 2" and two sections of 1 1/2"
conduit total about 40 feet, and with guys at the 30 foot level and
pulleys at 31, 35 and nearly 40 feet I can haul up a variety of wires
without much trouble. The costs did mount, as each 40' pole cost nearly
$100, plus "aircraft" wire cable and clamps, and I had to use a boom truck
to pick them up and hold them vertical until they were guyed. I used
cracks in the lava for three of the four posts, and the last one went over
an existing 1 1/2" diameter 6 foot high pipe at one property corner (a 10
foot pipe sunk in concrete). I'd imagine if you were to do something
similar, the conduit would cost less than here, as you don't have to worry
about ocean shipping adding costs to simple (but heavy) materials like
conduit and pipe. Once I get it all up, I'll total it up and put some
pictures on one of my web sites.

thanks
--Rick

Walter wrote:

Rick,

Thanks for the input, I have been to the big island, twice. Once in
1972, and once in 1978. I would love to go back sometime, but need to
talk my wife into it.

Anyway, it also sounds like you have a lot of real estate. I have a
pretty big back yard. That is almost made for a sky-wire loop.

Here is photo from last year, you can see that I have trees boarding
it all the way around. (the house is behind me when I took the photo)
The dipole is currently hooked to the tall maple in the back on the
left had side of this photo, running back to the house and another
maple tree of equal size in the front yard. There are large trees on
the right hand side of the property just out of view of this photo in
which I could run a few extra supports.

http://www.altonillinois.com/newhouse/backyard6.jpg

when I bought this house last year, I kind of lucked out. I got a
place that is only a half a mile or so from the highest elevation in
the county (keep in mind this is Illinois), and I'm only 50 feet or so
below that (580 feet)

I am leaning towards putting one up. It doesn't sound like it would
take much more work.

How is your feed line grounded?

Thanks.

Rick,

I would love to see a photo of the setup when you get done. It sounds
really cool.

I have posted some sky-wire questions in a few other groups and some
people have told me that I need to use a matching transformer,

http://www2.hard-core-dx.com/nordicd...eed/feed1.html

to balance the coax and the wire antenna.

I'm pretty sure I'm going to run a sky-wire, but I may wait until this
fall, after the leaves go. It seems easier without all of the leaves
when using a slingshot.

I tied mine up with trout line. I bought went I got the 1 oz. egg
sinkers and figured it should be able to hold up under bad weather.

about the setup, doesn't the ladder line become part of the antenna?

thanks.

Rick,

I would love to see a photo of the setup when you get done. It sounds
really cool.

I have posted some sky-wire questions in a few other groups and some
people have told me that I need to use a matching transformer,

http://www2.hard-core-dx.com/nordicd...eed/feed1.html

to balance the coax and the wire antenna.

I'm pretty sure I'm going to run a sky-wire, but I may wait until this
fall, after the leaves go. It seems easier without all of the leaves
when using a slingshot.

I tied mine up with trout line. I bought went I got the 1 oz. egg
sinkers and figured it should be able to hold up under bad weather.

about the setup, doesn't the ladder line become part of the antenna?

thanks.

Walter:

I really didn't notice any deficiency with the antenna directly fed by
coax, without any sort of matching transformer. As such, it is definitely
possible the coax became a vertical component of the antenna, and I've
actually had one person suggest I had a coax vertical antenna with a huge
top hat, but personally don't believe that for a minute.

With the ladder line, some will tell you the vertical component of the
ladder line becomes part of the antenna, and while this may be true in
some respect, the voltages on the two conductors of the ladder line are
opposite all of the time, so they should cancel out, resulting in no net
effect for the vertical section of ladder line feeding the loop.
Therefore, the loop pattern should be primarily dependent upon the number
of wavelengths long each of the sides is, and the relative polarization at
the band you are thinking of. Generally speaking, horizontal loops do
pretty well as the frequency increases... and typically are not so fussy
that they cannot be readily tuned with a decent antenna tuner.

Before I put up the poles, I just used a slingshot and a weight to pull a
light but strong twisted nylon line (about the same thickness as a "chalk
line") over or through appropriate trees and used it to pull the insulated
wire in place. The only pole was a wooden 2x6 that supported the feed
corner. With the pole version, nylon ropes hold pulleys that can be
raised from the ground, so I can run the loop around the inside of the
poles, through the pulleys, then hoist the pulleys up to the top of the
poles using the nylon ropes. This gives me the flexibility to lower the
wire to change the length (up to the maximum allowed by the inside
dimension described by the poles) or add a second conductor below or
inside the first one to help broadband the antenna. Art Bell used two
conductors about 4 or 5 feet apart vertically, with the lower one a bit
shorter than the top one. This may have effectively created the same
electrical effect as a 4 or 5 foot diameter element, thus creating a more
broadband antenna than a typical loop already is. Once I get the big loop
up, I'll be playing with different orientations of a second wire to see
how they play...

I'll take pictures and put them on one of my web sites once it's up...

--Rick AH7H

Walter wrote:

Rick,

I would love to see a photo of the setup when you get done. It sounds
really cool.

I have posted some sky-wire questions in a few other groups and some
people have told me that I need to use a matching transformer,

http://www2.hard-core-dx.com/nordicd...eed/feed1.html

to balance the coax and the wire antenna.

I'm pretty sure I'm going to run a sky-wire, but I may wait until this
fall, after the leaves go. It seems easier without all of the leaves
when using a slingshot.

I tied mine up with trout line. I bought went I got the 1 oz. egg
sinkers and figured it should be able to hold up under bad weather.

about the setup, doesn't the ladder line become part of the antenna?

thanks.

Walter:

I really didn't notice any deficiency with the antenna directly fed by
coax, without any sort of matching transformer. As such, it is definitely
possible the coax became a vertical component of the antenna, and I've
actually had one person suggest I had a coax vertical antenna with a huge
top hat, but personally don't believe that for a minute.

With the ladder line, some will tell you the vertical component of the
ladder line becomes part of the antenna, and while this may be true in
some respect, the voltages on the two conductors of the ladder line are
opposite all of the time, so they should cancel out, resulting in no net
effect for the vertical section of ladder line feeding the loop.
Therefore, the loop pattern should be primarily dependent upon the number
of wavelengths long each of the sides is, and the relative polarization at
the band you are thinking of. Generally speaking, horizontal loops do
pretty well as the frequency increases... and typically are not so fussy
that they cannot be readily tuned with a decent antenna tuner.

Before I put up the poles, I just used a slingshot and a weight to pull a
light but strong twisted nylon line (about the same thickness as a "chalk
line") over or through appropriate trees and used it to pull the insulated
wire in place. The only pole was a wooden 2x6 that supported the feed
corner. With the pole version, nylon ropes hold pulleys that can be
raised from the ground, so I can run the loop around the inside of the
poles, through the pulleys, then hoist the pulleys up to the top of the
poles using the nylon ropes. This gives me the flexibility to lower the
wire to change the length (up to the maximum allowed by the inside
dimension described by the poles) or add a second conductor below or
inside the first one to help broadband the antenna. Art Bell used two
conductors about 4 or 5 feet apart vertically, with the lower one a bit
shorter than the top one. This may have effectively created the same
electrical effect as a 4 or 5 foot diameter element, thus creating a more
broadband antenna than a typical loop already is. Once I get the big loop
up, I'll be playing with different orientations of a second wire to see
how they play...

I'll take pictures and put them on one of my web sites once it's up...

--Rick AH7H

Walter wrote:

Rick,

I would love to see a photo of the setup when you get done. It sounds
really cool.

I have posted some sky-wire questions in a few other groups and some
people have told me that I need to use a matching transformer,

http://www2.hard-core-dx.com/nordicd...eed/feed1.html

to balance the coax and the wire antenna.

I'm pretty sure I'm going to run a sky-wire, but I may wait until this
fall, after the leaves go. It seems easier without all of the leaves
when using a slingshot.

I tied mine up with trout line. I bought went I got the 1 oz. egg
sinkers and figured it should be able to hold up under bad weather.

about the setup, doesn't the ladder line become part of the antenna?

thanks.